Map Thread XIV

[Historyman 14]

Italy is fascist and has its two cronies, Austria and Yugoslavia. Instead of attempting to annex all of Ethiopia, they instead did indeed choose to puppetize it after annexing some border areas.

Hitler died in 1930, shot with his own gun by his half-nice Geli in self-defense after he attempted to force himself onto her. Goebbels is an obscure far-right author and philosopher, who isolates himself in his home town of Rheydt. The Strasser brothers are the leaders of the Free Worker's Party, a minor third-way party in South Germany. Hermann Göring lives in Sweden, where he runs a small private aviation firm, while spending his free time with minor Swedish aristocrats. Joachim von Ribbentrop has recently taken over his father-in-law's wine business. Himmler died in 1923, one of the few deaths in TTL's Beer Hall Putsch attempt.

Regarding the actual leadership I didn't give this much of a thought since this won't be a genuine timeline. What is certain though that North Germany is politically dominated by the Social Democrats, while South Germany tends to be governed by conservative multi-party coalitions.

I see.

What about China? Under a KMT? Or another faction?

So what would the World War 2 TTL sides be?

Who is the leader of the USSR? What is it like?

 

[Iserlohn]

Jugoslavia being an italian fascist ally/puppet seem difficult to believe as Benny see them as a place to dismember and annex and puppetize and was ready for the long road; while fascist was extremely possible, it will be more allied to France for protection.
In any case, things seem go well for Mussolini, the acceptance of the H-L pact mean a shorter war in Abyssinia and more importantly (maybe) an avoided occupation and throwing money in idiotic urbanization project and the occupation of the Balearic mean that ITTL something has been gain from the entire Spain adventures and this is more that can be said OTL (better if the war has been short)

I'm not even 100 percent sure that Mussolini is the duce of Italy ITTL (or rather at this point in time). This is definitely a (short-term) Italy-wank, which would require a better leadership to begin with.

I see.

What about China? Under a KMT? Or another faction?

So what would the World War 2 TTL sides be?

Who is the leader of the USSR? What is it like?

China is under KMT control and, considering the situation they are currently stuck in, are in a relatively good place. And by "relatively good place" I mean they don't have to fear a curbstomp by Japan and their industry has expanded significantly since the fall of the Qing dynasty. But overall still quite similar to OTL.

WW2 might not happen. Italy and friends, Poland & Hungary, the Soviet Union, and Japan are the likely aggressors of the next ten years or so, though it's likely that these conflicts will merely stay regional. However the Anglo-French entente still is around, so they can toss in their weight if needed.

The Soviet Union is led by Lev Kamenev, because the struggle between Stalin and Trotsky turned deadly for both of them ITTL. Kamenev's moderation has led to the USSR being quite centralized and following the "socialism in one country" train of thought, so in that regard its comparable to Stalin's Soviet Union. However he is far less paranoid and brutal internally, so there haven't really been any major purges.

 

[Blomma]

Hugo Preuss may be best known for drafting the Weimar Constitution, but he also planned to reorganise all territories of Germany. His proposal was a federal nation made up of 14 Free States. This map mostly follows his ideas with a few alterations.

Each state and capital:
Baden - Karlsruhe
Bavaria - Munich
Berlin - Berlin
Brandenburg - Berlin
The Hanseatic Cities - Hamburg
Hesse - Frankfurt
Prussia - Königsberg
Lower Saxony - Hanover
The Rhineland - Cologne
Thuringia - Erfurt
Silesia - Breslau
Upper Saxony - Leipzig
Westphalia - Münster
Württemberg - Stuttgart

The dotted red line shows the pre-WW1 borders of Germany (which German cartographers in the 20s loved to show) and the thick red line is the current German borders.

 

[Isaac Beach]

Hugo Preuss may be best known for drafting the Weimar Constitution, but he also planned to reorganise all territories of Germany. His proposal was a federal nation made up of 14 Free States. This map mostly follows his ideas with a few alterations.

Each state and capital:
Baden - Karlsruhe
Bavaria - Munich
Berlin - Berlin
Brandenburg - Berlin
The Hanseatic Cities - Hamburg
Hesse - Frankfurt
Prussia - Königsberg
Lower Saxony - Hanover
The Rhineland - Cologne
Thuringia - Erfurt
Silesia - Breslau
Upper Saxony - Leipzig
Westphalia - Münster
Württemberg - Stuttgart

The dotted red line shows the pre-WW1 borders of Germany (which German cartographers in the 20s loved to show) and the thick red line is the current German borders.

That is incredibly satisfying to look at.

 

[Analytical Engine]

But the birth of an aboriginal child has no tangible connections to a British sperm and egg.

Events are not hyper random, unless something changes that actually effects something else it's not just going to change.
Though of course, if we bring in the Multiverse the entire argument either way is moot since every possible set of events will happen in infinite variations, but..

Determined how exactly? I thought we went over this- changes don't just magically happen.

The only reason Analytic and Co. even give is 'because one thing is different, everything else will be' without any explanation whatsoever. So basically handwavium. I already made a post responding to this point of view and its total lack of evidence, that changes spread out like ripples from a point of divergence- they don't just happen for their own sake. Oh and many changes don't even ultimately have significance- not every ripple in a puddle creates tsunamis in Asia and not every forest fire triggers runaway global warming that destroys all life in Eaeth.

Even the original chaos theory proponents admitted that chaos had deterministic elements and is not just 'lol random'. I'm not going to go into another pointless debate though if people blindly insist that every tiny thing *must* result in something big even though the evidence shows us otherwise.

It seems some miscommunication has happened here. In the example Iori gave, I highlighted the ridiculousness of absolutely every possible event in the whole of Europe being EXACTLY the same for 52 years after the POD, purely because the POD happened in somewhere that hadn't had cultural contact yet.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have studied probability, statistics, and mathematical modelling.

Also, I have never claimed that the world is entirely random. It very much isn't. Nor is it entirely determined either. From most deterministic to most random, my view is as follows:

• astronomical events - the motion of the planets are like clockwork. However, there is enough unpredictability in orbital mechanics and the interaction of multiple objects to suggest that the orbit of planets may intersect in millions or billions of years time
• geological processes - we don't know enough about volcanoes or earthquakes to predict them on any long-term basis, but I feel that there is enough inertia to suggest that any deviation would be narrow - days, or weeks at most. Islands, and even continents may end up in different locations with a PoD far back enough
• cultural development - this propagates as ripples in a pond. Culture can still vary in short term and small scales, but big things take a great deal of time and effort to change
• climate - probably joint with culture
• the large-scale movement of ordinary people prior to trains
• weather - chaotic; predictable on the scale of days with supercomputers and finding the mode of multiple models, but not further than that, mostly due to paucity of information
• reproduction - sperm move around subject to undirected action; how the flagella behaves may be deterministic, but the direction of travel is not. There is no guarantee that the same sperm would survive long enough to fertilise the egg in an ATL, even if the PoD is very close to the point of conception
• particulate motion - ever watch the meandering of dust particles, the fall of snowflakes, or of raindrops - motion in the air can make them fall differently
• quantum mechanics - this is strange. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't understood it

The bigger the scale, generally the more deterministic it is.

 

[lukedalton]

I'm not even 100 percent sure that Mussolini is the duce of Italy ITTL (or rather at this point in time). This is definitely a (short-term) Italy-wank, which would require a better leadership to begin with.

yes, Benny not in charge help a lot; try D'Annunzio he is the type of leader very good on inspire people...but totally not interested in the day to day grueling work of politics and administration. While Benny usually try to micromanage everythinga and accumulate the number of ministry he was directly in charge, D'Annunzio will soon become a (willing) figurehead...at least till someone don't say that on his face and will leave the real work to other people; basically look aside he was the exact type of men that the liberal enstablisment instead though Mussolini was...someone really easy to manipulate.

 

[TwiliAlchemist]

-snip-

I've always heard that "butterfly nets" are what most writers use to limit the amount of change that happens. Plus, most people don't want to have to write entire timelines where they have to take into account every time someone sneezes or it rains on a previously sunny day. I always counted two completely separate events changing everything as separate Points of Divergence. Even if it's more probably that everything changes after the POD, that doesn't mean that people should read or write it that way. You could have three people writing separate timelines that all start with the same POD. (We shall use the previous example of an Australian Aboriginal chief dying and his daughter taking over.) One person has very realistic standards for the timeline, having everything after the POD change slightly. Person two takes a semi-realistic approach, but keeps some parallelism in there so readers have some enjoyment of seeing where OTL people end up in this timeline. The third person disregards all plausibility and does and entire ASB timeline. While timeline one would be interesting, extremely detailed, and very well researched, it might be a more niche timeline. Timeline two might have some plausability problems, it's well researched and and enjoyable read. Timeline three is a pure wank with no to minimal research done, which might have a lot more rule of cool, but most people (especially butterfly lovers) dislike it. As a general rule, timelines keep things the same until other things begin interacting with the POD itself. I think someone said once that just because an emperor dies in China doesn't mean that a gambler's dice roll will automatically change because of what happens in China. Two separate Points of Divergence for two separate events.

TLDR: Aboriginal Chief dies in Australia, one point of divergence. A difference sperm reaching the egg preventing an OTL King being born, seperate point of divergence in the same world.

 

[Osk]

That is incredibly satisfying to look at.

I have to agree!

 

[Grand Prince Paul II.]

Hugo Preuss may be best known for drafting the Weimar Constitution, but he also planned to reorganise all territories of Germany. His proposal was a federal nation made up of 14 Free States. This map mostly follows his ideas with a few alterations.

Each state and capital:
Baden - Karlsruhe
Bavaria - Munich
Berlin - Berlin
Brandenburg - Berlin
The Hanseatic Cities - Hamburg
Hesse - Frankfurt
Prussia - Königsberg
Lower Saxony - Hanover
The Rhineland - Cologne
Thuringia - Erfurt
Silesia - Breslau
Upper Saxony - Leipzig
Westphalia - Münster
Württemberg - Stuttgart

The dotted red line shows the pre-WW1 borders of Germany (which German cartographers in the 20s loved to show) and the thick red line is the current German borders.

No Schleswig-Holstein? No Mecklenburg? Curse this Berliner.

 

[skozik]

No Schleswig-Holstein? No Mecklenburg? Curse this Berliner.

No Pomerania, either! Despite the fact that that Prussian exclave is begging to be its own thing. Also #FreeFranconia2k16 !!

 

[Gian]

So, the latest update to my France map is here on Deviantart:

 

[Analytical Engine]

So, the latest update to my France map is here on Deviantart:

The awesomeness of this map doesn't offset the heretical republican Britain *shudders*

 

[Pragmatic Progressive]

We have so many American members...

Is there really nobody there to make the USA for our new project, the M-BAM?

What about @Chicxulub with his County-BAM?

 

[Pragmatic Progressive]

It's a bit complicated, but in a nutshell, this is how it typically goes.

Type I-"Hard" Timelines-TLs that are rather well researched and are able to strike a strong balance between divergence & staying within believability-Male Rising is one of those rare TLs.
Type II-The middle category-Most TLs in general. This is arguably the broadest category of them all, and can vary widely from high Type II(For Want of a Nail) to lower Type II(Decades of Darkness), or somewhere in the middle(the classic Ill Bethisad).
Type III-"Soft" timelines-basically, where the absolute "Rule of Cool" timelines are, as well as TLs that rely incredibly heavily on either excessive butterfly nets or divergence, as well as most dystopias. This would include most Nazi victory TLs, as well as What Madness Is This?, or even George Orwell's 1984. Not to mention many of the TLs on the AltHistory Wikia.
Type IV-All the undeniably implausible timelines out there. Possibly the rarest category of them all, but might include CSA: The Movie, or even the Drakaverse(although often categorized as a Type III).

Cool classification system!

As what would you classify:

a) common Map Games like the 1776 MG and 1838 MG?
b) Hammers, Sickles and Mushroom Clouds by @KaiserK - RIP
c) my own attempt at a TL - Wrong Type of Kentucky, Wrong Type of France

 

[gxblt]

snipe

Which means that Finland was conquered in times of cultural and linguistic diversity, which is not entirely against what I'm saying.

snape

It is of course hard to find resources on the development of Finnish dialects towards the modern "common language", but I have always read about the dialects starting to diverge rather rapidly when you start going back from the 1800s or so. I do like your idea of Finnish mythology and the likes being divisive factors, I could see clans/tribes descendant from the epic heroes and characters.

I won't take back my Savonian remark, though; my grandmother is from Varkaus and I need a translator to talk with her.

 

[zalezsky]

The Finnish dialects are alive and well, in many ways, but personally I would not exactly say that people from different areas have a really hard time to understand each other. There are many words in different dialects that will stump those from other parts of the country, but in general most spoken language is quite mutually intelligible across the nation. What ever actual differences between the dialect areas there still were in vocabulary, etc, in the 19th century, say, the existence of a national education system using an agreed-upon "general/official Finnish" and the YLE (and the national and regional media in general) doing the same have by the modern day done away with most of the reasons why an Ostrobothnian could not understand a Savonian, for example. More often than not, today, it is as easy to understand someone as it is to guess from which part of the country they come from, IMO. The dialects today are more about the style of speech rather than the content of it.

Anyway, here is a dialect map (for 1920-40, I'd say, though adding Ingria is a bit incongruous in that case).

ITS BEAUTIFULLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

 

[Cheer]

So, the latest update to my France map is here on Deviantart:
"Amazing map ensues"

Truly amazing. Outstanding. Gorgeous.

 

[Indicus]

or even George Orwell's 1984.

But that's not an AH.

 

[Analytical Engine]

But that's not an AH.

It was an alternate future. Now it's alternate history.

 

[Gian]

Truly amazing. Outstanding. Gorgeous.

Thanks.